


No Quarter

by ivorygates



Series: No Quarter [1]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 08:29:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you have any idea what the Kinsey Scale is?"</p><p>O'Neill knows damned well, and exactly where he falls on it. "Why don't you tell me?"</p><p>Danny laughs shortly. "It rates the taxonomy of sexual orientation on a seven-point scale. Zero is exclusively heterosexual red-blooded American breeders like you. Six is for guys who played with Barbies in their cradle. I'm probably a seven."</p><p>"Overachiever," O'Neill says mildly. He guesses that personally he falls somewhere between a '2' and a '3'; he was curious enough to look it up once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Quarter

_In medias res: "Children of the Gods"_

"You have no idea what I've lost," Danny snarls. His voice is ragged and slurred. He flings the empty glass down. It shatters on the hearth stones. He takes a staggering step forward.

 _He's going to fall flat on his face._ O'Neill launches himself to his feet and across the room. He barely manages to get his hands on Danny before he crumples. "Easy there, cowboy," he says.

"Leave me alone," Danny says. His head drops forward onto O'Neill's chest.

"Sure." He tries to slow his heartbeat, still the rush of _wanting. Not here, not now_. He slips an arm around Danny's shoulders and walks him over to the couch. He sits down. Danny collapses bonelessly beside him, head lolling back.

"I disgust you," he says.

"No," O'Neill answers. His beer is still in his hand; he's actually managed to hold onto it through all that. Reflex. _Whatever happens, don't spill the beer._ He takes a long pull on it.

"I'm gay," Danny says. He sounds angry. Drunk and angry and despairing.  
  
"I've got that, actually," O'Neill says. He's known it from the moment Danny Jackson walked into Project Giza. West had been bitching up one side and down the other; Danny had been flirting at -- but not with -- Kawalsky; Kawalsky'd thought it was all a fine joke.

"They married me to her," Danny says. He moans, a strangled sound. "I couldn't... I spent all night trying to _talk_ to her."

"You managed."

Danny laughs. It sounds like the next thing to crying. "Oh, god, Jack, do you know what I told her? Do you know what she told me? Do you? Do you know why I stayed?"

"No," O'Neill says quietly. "I don't." Sometimes they need to talk to keep from doing something worse. Danny's thigh is warm, pressed up against his. He doubts Danny notices. O'Neill does. He'd move away, but he's at the end of the couch already. There's no place to go. He can't even get his arm down between them without shoving, so he leaves it where it is.

"I told her I could never be a husband to her. I could never touch her. I could never... I've never..." Danny's head drops to his chest and he hugs himself tightly, shuddering.

What O'Neill wants to do most in that moment is hold him. It would be easy to lower his arm, to put it around Danny's shoulders, to touch him, to gather him in. Danny needs to be held. O'Neill knows that. But he doesn't. Too many secrets, held too long the way he wants to hold Danny.

"You've never had a woman?" he says instead.

"I don't _want_ a woman!" Danny says angrily. He might be drunk -- he _is_ drunk, and on only two fingers of Scotch -- but he's talkative and lucid. "Do you have any idea what the Kinsey Scale is?"

O'Neill knows damned well, and exactly where he falls on it. "Why don't you tell me?"

Danny laughs shortly. "It rates the taxonomy of sexual orientation on a seven-point scale. Zero is exclusively heterosexual red-blooded American breeders like you. Six is for guys who played with Barbies in their cradle. I'm probably a seven."

"Overachiever," O'Neill says mildly. He guesses that personally he falls somewhere between a '2' and a '3'; he was curious enough to look it up once. Danny gazes at him, blinking slowly. He's obviously a little surprised. Hasn't gotten the reaction he expected. "So how do you say 'taxonomy' in Ancient Egyptian?" O'Neill adds, and wins a faint smile.

"I got my point across," Danny says softly. "I told her it wasn't her. That she was beautiful. That a "proper" man would desire her, but I ... didn't. She said... She said... I was still her husband. That it didn't make any difference to her that I was a lover of men. But with my... permission... she'd take Skaara as her second husband. When he was old enough."

Skaara is Sha're's brother, O'Neill is pretty sure. But he's heard of weirder things.

"It would be traditional. The Ancient Egyptians--" Danny stops. "They're gone. Oh, god, Jack, they're gone, they're both gone, what am I going to do?"

"We'll find them," O'Neill says.

Danny turns toward him, and the alcohol is burned away, replaced by fear. The eyes behind those glasses are very blue, and the tears shimmering there are as much from anger as from grief. "They'll send me away," he whispers harshly. "Catherine's gone. It's a military program now -- you saw how that General looked at me -- they'll send me away -- I'll never know -- I won't be able to -- oh, god, Jack, _help me_ \--"

And O'Neill can't resist any longer. The fear, the grief, the desperation. He drops his arm to Danny's shoulders and gathers him in. He puts his other arm around him too, hugging him close.

"Don’t-- Don't--" Danny whispers against his neck. He's trembling, but he isn't pulling away. He's just lying against O'Neill's chest, shaking. Keyed-up and exhausted and terrified. Saw too much today. Things nobody should ever have to see. No matter _how_ he loves Sha're and Skaara, he loves them. O'Neill rubs his back with the hand that isn't holding him in place. He's half resigned to the inevitability of it when Danny drops a hand to his crotch and finds him hard.

Danny squeezes. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to put a hitch in O'Neill's breathing. "Is this why you brought me here?" Danny's voice sounds unutterably weary, and suddenly O'Neill realizes what he must be thinking. He reaches down and moves Danny's hand away.

"No. I brought you here because you needed a place to be. Anything else ... that's my problem, not yours."

Danny pulls away -- O'Neill lets him -- and looks at him. Confused now as much as anything else, and whipsawed to the point of exhaustion. "So if I wanted to blow you...?" he says.

A momentary smile quirks O'Neill's mouth. "That'd be great, sure, but I don't take advantage of guys who've had a few too many. And I kind of think that 'one' is a few too many for you."

Danny smiles suddenly. He smiled at Ra that way, O'Neill remembers; it's a dangerous expression. And he opens his mouth, as if he's decided to argue. And then right in the middle of that he changes his mind, and leans forward, and suddenly his mouth is over O'Neill's.

As first kisses go, it's unexpected. But it's not _his_ first kiss by a long shot, on either side of the street. He opens his mouth and lets Danny in, and after a few seconds Danny stops trying to shock him or disgust him and realizes O'Neill knows what he's doing. And O'Neill realizes he's giving up everything here -- Danny's smart enough to put all the pieces together -- but it doesn't matter. One part of him has been thinking this through for months, another part for hours.

He trusts Danny Jackson with his life. He's _already_ trusted Danny Jackson with his life, back on Abydos. Danny Jackson wants in to the Stargate Program. O'Neill can get him there.

Danny won't betray him.

QED.

Danny pulls back, staring at him wide-eyed. His mouth is hanging slightly open. He licks his lips.

"You're gay," he says accusingly.

"Switch-hitter," O'Neill corrects. "I bat for both teams." He takes a deep breath. Wherever he wants this to go -- and just a minute ago Danny was kissing him like _oh god_ and _fuck me now_ and _don't stop_ \-- he knows it isn't going there. Not tonight. Probably not ever.

 _Very_ probably not ever.

"Do they...?" Danny shakes his head. "If they knew, they'd..."

"The Air Force would politely ask me to resign my commission," O'Neill says levelly. "No one knows."

Danny blinks slowly. "Your, um. Your wife?"

O'Neill sighs faintly. Sara never knew. He's sure of that. She'd have left him. "You marry to advance. I was faithful." In his heart and in his hope. The failures of the flesh were momentary, and always far from home. He'd punished himself for them more savagely than anyone else ever could have.

"So was I," Danny says in a low voice. His eyelids flutter closed; he's swaying with exhaustion. The adrenaline high is finally wearing off -- the alcohol helped with that -- and he's crashing.

"It's time for bed," O'Neill says. There's no point to this conversation. "Come on."

#

He expects -- he intends -- for Danny to spend the night in the guest room. He leaves him there with everything he needs: clean towels, a set of sweats to change into. But when he comes out of the bathroom, Danny's standing in his bedroom beside the bed in t-shirt and boxers.

"Can I...?" he asks. "I'm sorry. I... It's so quiet."

In a silent house that reverberates to the screams of his kidnapped family.

"Climb in," O'Neill says. A bad idea. He knows that. To lie in the night next to the man he's fantasized about for far too long. Danny has a way of making people love him; O'Neill's already seen that. And he's loveable, in the sense that he's worthy of loving.

It hasn't been the sex O'Neill's fantasized about in the past year.

Danny climbs quickly into the bed. O'Neill gets in on his side and turns out the light. There's silence for a moment.

"Jack?"

"Right here." Damn him. He should be asleep by now.

"You didn't have to tell me."

"Didn't want you thinking I'd brought you here to..." To force him to his knees, to force a cock down his throat, because a quick blow-job from a guy didn't make you _gay_ , for Chrissakes, and how many times has O'Neill heard that in the course of his career? How many times has he been forced to say those words himself as protective coloration?

Danny reaches out in the darkness and puts a hand on his chest. "You wouldn't do that. Even if you were straight, you wouldn't do that to me."

He puts his hand over Danny's. "Nobody's ever gonna do that to you again," he says, and the tacit promise of 'forever' slips out before he can stop himself. Even if he doesn't know -- not with certainty -- that it's ever happened before, it's all-too-likely that it has. Pretty boy. Smart mouth. "And tomorrow we're going to go in there and get things straight with the General."

Danny snickers groggily at his choice of words. "So the blow-job is still on the table?" he asks. The words are soft, slow, dragged down by the edge of oncoming sleep.

"Not tonight, dear," O'Neill says, holding Danny's hand over his heart. "I have a headache."

There's no answer. Danny's asleep.

#

There's a meeting in an hour on their Alien Menace Problem. He's in Hammond's office.

"Permission to make a request, sir?"

General Hammond regards him with suspicion, and he's barely known him for 48 hours. It usually takes O'Neill's commanding officers a month or so to work up this level of mistrust.

"Colonel?"

"I'd like to attach Dr. Jackson to SG-1, as he's requested. If Ferretti _did_ see the address those guys dialed--" _and wakes up_ "--we'll need him."

There's a long pause. "You're aware that Dr. Jackson is something of a security risk, Colonel O'Neill?"

He's read the Cliff's Notes version of Danny's security file, from back when this was Project Giza. "No, sir, I don't think so. You can't blackmail somebody for something that isn't a secret. He signed all the paperwork a year ago -- it's probably still on file around here somewhere. He can't say anything about the Stargate without being locked up. And ... he considers those people who were kidnapped his family. He wants to get them back. And we need him out there."

"So you don't feel that working with him would be a problem?" General Hammond asks.

"No sir. It wasn't on Abydos." Some of his team might have had reservations. But only he, Kawalsky, and Ferretti made it back, and both of them are stand-up guys.

"Very well, Colonel. You may consider Dr. Jackson attached to SG-1, pending a final decision by my superiors."

"Thank you, sir." It isn't perfect. But it's as good as he's going to get right now.

#

Back from Chulak. They've lost Sha're and Skaara to the _Goa'uld_. They've picked up Teal'c.

Danny's keeping his head down, working hard. The SGC is full of refugees, and SG-1 has promised they'll be able to send them all back where they came from. Danny's vital to that, and even though he's running himself ragged, O'Neill doesn't interfere. He's proving himself. Proving he's as vital to the Program as O'Neill said he was.

And then Kawalsky's dead, and he's barely gotten a chance to get used to the idea that there was a _worm_ in his buddy's head pretending to be him, and the other shoe drops. General Hammond calls him into his office. He looks like he's been biting lemons.

"Sir, if this is about Teal'c--" he says. They've sent Kennedy packing -- alone -- but O'Neill's not quite sure Teal'c's safe.

"Sit down, Colonel. No. Colonel Kennedy has gone back to Washington. And there's finally been a determination on Dr. Jackson's case."

"I didn't know there was a "case", sir."

General Hammond lets that one go by. "The Pentagon is willing to permit Dr. Jackson's continued participation in the Stargate Program ... under certain conditions."

General Hammond doesn't look particularly happy about it. And when he explains the 'conditions,' O'Neill isn't happy either.

#

"Hey," he says.

The Program has found Danny an office on Level 18. They've been back from Chulak a week, and it's already starting to fill up with ... junk. Danny hasn't been out of here since the first night he came back. Just as well. He doesn't really have any place to go in the Springs but O'Neill's place, and O'Neill's pretty sure that isn't a very good idea. For too many reasons.

Danny looks up from his computer. "Is Teal'c all right?" he asks.

The big guy kidnapped Sha're and Skaara. Following orders; that's never been a really good defense. Danny's never held that against him. Not for a second.

"Fine." O'Neill really doesn't want to say what he's going to have to say next.

"Good. That's ... good." Danny leans back and stretches. "God, I'm really tired of staring at these walls. I can't remember the last time I saw the sun."

"We've got a mission tomorrow."

Danny grins at him. "Not quite what I had in mind. I really need to find a place to live. Maybe this weekend you could help me look? We get weekends off, right? I mean, if you..."

The quality of the silence has changed. Danny picks up on it quickly. He's not stupid.

"Jack?"

"You remember I said General Hammond had to kick the thing about you staying upstairs?"

Danny licks his lips nervously, watching O'Neill's face. He shakes his head slightly. "You said we had a mission."

"Oh, you can stay," O'Neill says bitterly. "But there are conditions." It has been agreed that Dr. Jackson is an invaluable resource and vital to the continued success of the Stargate Program. It has even been agreed that he will be allowed to remain on SG-1, at the strong recommendation of his commanding officer, Colonel Jack O'Neill.

But.

Off-duty, Dr. Jackson will be closely-supervised at all times.

He will be restricted to Base.

"They can't do that," Danny says. He sounds stunned.

"They can."

Danny looks around. Grey concrete, a mile underground. "I can't live my life in a cage, Jack," he says.

"The Air Force isn't exactly a democracy," O'Neill reminds him.

Danny gets to his feet and starts to pace. O'Neill can see him working it all out in his mind. Live here -- underground -- or tell the Pentagon to go to hell. And be off SG-1, out of the SGC, and never know what's happened to Sha're and Skaara.

"Oh this is great! This is just terrific! None of this would even be here without me and Sam! Are they going to lock _her_ up next?"

O'Neill doesn't say anything. Nobody's going to lock Carter up. Carter's a blonde blue-eyed general's daughter who likes men. They might ask her to go for coffee -- if they're _suicidal_ \-- but they won't lock her up.

"What they hell do they think I'm going to do?" Danny demands.

"They think you're gay," O'Neill says. That's what it boils down to. Not what he'll do. But what he _is_.

Danny stops and stares at him in outraged disbelief. "I _am_ gay!" he says, almost sputtering. "And you'd really think the Pentagon would be smarter than to decide to lock me up in the middle of a _military base_. Because while that might provide a _lovely_ boost for morale, somehow I'm not sure General Hammond is ready for Disco Night in the cafeteria or _Extremely_ Casual Fridays."

"If you make trouble--" O'Neill says.

"You think _I'm_ going to be the one who makes trouble?" Danny yelps. He sounds hurt now, as well as outraged.

"No." _Probably not._ But Danny's also probably right about the fact that there will be problems if he has to live on-Base. Teal'c's going to have to live here -- no way around that with a snake in his gut -- and there are already mutterings about that.

But there's a way around it.

#

"Danny, what are you doing in my bathroom?"

"Well, actually, Jack, if you want to be perfectly accurate, isn't it _our_ bathroom now?"

O'Neill distrusts the entirely specious innocence in that voice, especially when the speaker is standing in the bathroom ( _his_ bathroom; he's pretty sure they'd agreed that Danny got the half-bath down the hall for most things) at 0600 in the morning _putting on eye makeup_. He doesn't look bad. He doesn't look freaky, or as if he's trying to look like a girl, or anything. You almost wouldn't notice. For maybe a second and a half.

"The question stands."

Danny leans in toward the mirror, peering at his reflection, blending and smoothing the stuff with a fingertip. Okay, it's really subtle. Kind of tan colored. He picks up something that looks like a fat pencil and starts drawing around his eyes, just under the lashes, adding a narrow dark line. His earrings -- diamond studs, both ears -- flash in the light as he tilts his head. Oh, those are going to go over great down on Level 27.

"Getting ready for work," he says in an abstracted _don't bother me_ voice.

"You're putting on makeup." In case Danny hadn't noticed.

"Teal'c wears makeup." Danny starts in on the other eye. O'Neill wonders if Sara ever wore makeup. He suspects she did. There was crap like this all over the bathroom. Pencils and little jars and tiny plastic boxes.

"Teal'c is an _alien_."

"There are times I feel like an alien," Danny says softly. He caps the pencil and tosses it back in his shaving kit -- and that's what's wrong with the entire world, right there; not the makeup thing, or even that he wants to wear it (Teal'c wears makeup) but that he's in O'Neill's bathroom at six in the morning because he has no choice. Because the Pentagon doesn't see any difference between Danny Jackson and a (formerly) enemy alien. He tosses the little black box of tan stuff in after the pencil and washes his hands.

"You're not going to get that crap on my towels, are you?" O'Neill says.

"No, Jack," Danny says patiently. He sounds amused.

He dries his hands -- no crap on the towels, O'Neill checks -- and digs in the kit again. O'Neill wonders what's next.

"Perfectly good bathroom down the hall," O'Neill says.

"Light's better here," Danny says. He's got a little jar in his hand. O'Neill recognizes it. Lip gloss. _Tinted_ lip gloss. Danny dips a finger in it and swipes it over his lips. When he's done, they're pink and they glisten. "It's cherry-flavored," he says, closing the jar and tossing it back into his kit. He turns away from the mirror. Looking much more than good enough to eat. He smiles wickedly.

"You're jerking my chain, aren't you?" O'Neill says. What he wants to do with Danny is almost irresistible and completely forbidden, and they both know it.

"I'm jerking _everybody's_ chain," Danny answers.

#

**Author's Note:**

> This series has been written inside out. "Shell Game", the fifth story in the series, was written first. "Danny" Jackson was only a mention. But then, of course, I wrote back and sideways from that in all directions. Chronologially, this comes first; I think it was the second of the stories...


End file.
